IDEX Online Research: Bridal Market Remains Solid, But Changing
July 18, 11(IDEX Online) – The jewelry bridal market continues to grow for
Highlights of the U.S. Census Bureau study include the following:
· The average age for the first marriage is 26 for women and 28 for men. This is up by about one year over the past decade; in 2000, the average age at first marriage for women was just over 25 and about 27 for men. In 1890, about 120 years ago, the average age for first marriage was 22 for women and 26 for men. While some reports claim that most couples are now in their 30s before they marry, the Census Bureau research refutes this. The most likely time for marriage is when men and women are in their mid-to-late 20s.
· The marriage rate is declining. The number of men and women who are getting married is not rising as rapidly as previously forecasted. Instead, more couples are simply cohabitating.
· The number of couples who reach a key wedding anniversary – 5th, 10th, and so on – remains relatively stable. This market is an oft-overlooked opportunity.
· The rate of divorce has leveled off, and appears to be declining modestly among younger consumers. About 40% of all ever-married couples report that their first marriage ended in divorce. These new findings refute the popularly reported statistic that 50% of all marriages end in divorce.
· The proverbial “Seven-Year Itch” – an adage that suggests men and women are most likely to divorce after about seven years of marriage – appears to be a truism, both for first and second marriages that end in divorce. However, in the past decade the “seven-year itch” has edged up to become the “eight-year itch.”
Bridal Market Important to Jewelers
The bridal jewelry market is important to jewelers. Some mass-market jewelers report that up to half of their sales are bridal-related, while up-market jewelers report that 20% or so of their sales are driven by bridal demand. Bridal jewelry includes the diamond engagement ring, wedding bands, jewelry gifts to attendants and other jewelry purchases driven by an impending wedding.
Because of the importance of the bridal market, many firms are trying to produce data on the potential value of demand for bridal-related products and service. Unfortunately, much of the data is not representative of the total bridal jewelry universe. Either the sample is distorted by geography (too many large cities represented, and not enough rural couples – who tend to marry younger – are surveyed), or the sample size is too small to be statistically significant.
The Census Bureau surveyed 39,000 households and about 55,500 ever-married adults (men and women age 15 and older) about their marriages. This sample size is large enough to be statistically sound. Thus, we believe that jewelers should use the Census Bureau data for reference, since it is reliable and defensible.
First Marriage Coming Later, But Not By Much
The average age at first marriage is rising slightly, but the “sweet spot” for weddings is still for couples in their 20s.
In 2010, the average age for first marriage for women was 26.1 years old, while the man was 28.2 years old. The average age for the first marriage has crept up by about one year over the past decade. In 2000, the typical female was 25.1 years old at first marriage, and the typical male was 26.8 years old.
Far too many surveys measure the age at first marriage from the end of World War II, which is when the government’s Current Population Survey was initiated. Prior to that, marriage statistics were based on the decennial census. The problem with the Current Population Survey is that it began just as
The graph below summarizes the age at first marriage for couples since 1890. In that year, the typical male was 26.1 years old at the time of his first marriage, just two years younger than today’s males. Thus, the average age for men at first marriage has risen by only two years over the past 120 years. For females, the average woman was a young 22.0 years old when she first married in 1890. Today, she is four years older – 26.1 years old. In short, the popularly reported “sharp rise” in the age of couples at their first marriage isn’t nearly as dramatic as some would lead you to believe.
Source: US Census Bureau
Implications for Jewelers – Slightly older couples are better customers for jewelers. First, they have probably accumulated some wealth, so it is likely that they will spend more on an engagement ring. Second, they will likely spend more on other wedding-related jewelry. Third, they are more likely to return as repeat customers for future events that call for “celebration jewelry” such as the birth of a child, graduation, or some other life cycle event, since they have greater income to spend on gifts.
The Number of “Never-Married” Men & Women Is Rising
The Census Bureau notes that as marriage rates have decreased and cohabitation has become more common, married couples are more likely to be better off socioeconomically and have more education.
While there has always been some level of promiscuity – “shacking up” as the Baby-Boomers called it – a vast majority of couples initiated a three-step process to setting up their initial household: first, the couples married, then they set up housekeeping together, and finally they began to have children. Over the past few decades, some of couples have elected to change the order of these steps: they may have begun to have children, then moved in together, and finally, they married. American society appears to have become more tolerant of couples who live together and have children out of wedlock.
Largely because of the change in the order of setting up households – cohabitation first, then marriage – the percentage of never-married women has increased, not only among women in their 20s, but also among women as old as 50-55 years.
The graph below illustrates the number of “never-married” females by age the past five Census Bureau surveys – 25 years of data collection since 1986. Here’s what the graph shows: for women age 25-29, about 27% of them had never married in 1986. However, by 2009, about 45% of all women had never married. The other two age groups on the graph - 30-34 year olds and 35-39 year olds – show the same trends: they are not marrying as early (and they may simply never marry).
Clearly, the number of men and women who have never married is rising, and conversely, the number of men and women who have ever married is declining. For women ages 40 and over, the “never-married” trend is the same as for those shown on the graph below.
Source: US Census Bureau |
Implications for Jewelers – The marriage pool is theoretically not growing as much as historical rates would have suggested. Thus, the bridal market may not be growing as rapidly as earlier forecasts had predicted. However, when they finally marry, they are likely to be older, have higher incomes, be wealthier and have a more established household, all characteristics that favor larger jewelry purchases.
Marriage Rates Vary Widely by Ethnicity
There is great disparity in the number of “never-married” women by ethnicity. For example, when compared to other ethnicities, far fewer Black women ever marry. By age 34, less than half of all Black women have married, compared to nearly 80% (four-in-five) White women who have married by that age.
In contrast, Asian women tend to marry later in life, but a higher percentage of them eventually marry, when compared to other races and ethnicities. While just over half (51.6%) of Asian women age 25-29 have never married, by the time they reach the age range of 30-34, only 11.8% have never married (conversely, nearly 90% of Asian women have married by age 34,the highest percentage among any major ethnicity in the U.S.).
The graph below summarizes the number of “never-married women” by ethnicity for females 25-29 years old and 30-34 years old.
Source: US Census Bureau |
Implications for Jewelers – Jewelers should never pre-judge customers who come into their store. After all, they would not be in your store if they weren’t interested in purchasing jewelry. However, jewelers may want to use the data on ethnicity to target their bridal advertising. For example, Black consumers have a low marriage rate: more than 70% aren’t married by age 30, and less than half are married by age 34. When this demographic data is coupled with Black’s household income – by far the lowest of all ethnicities, based on data from the government’s Consumer Expenditure Survey – they simply are not an attractive market for jewelers.
Married Couples “Sticking Together” Long Enough to Celebrate Key Wedding Anniversaries
Once a couple marries, how long to they stay together? This is a key question for jewelers, since major anniversaries – generally the 5th, 10th, and every five years beyond – represent major gift-giving opportunities for the husband and wife.
About 90% of all married couples reach their fifth wedding anniversary. By the 10th wedding anniversary, roughly three in four couples are still married. At the 15th anniversary, more than two-thirds are still married. After that, it levels off to about 60% of all couples who are still married by the 30th, 35th, and 40th wedding anniversary.
The following graph summarizes the percent of married couples who reach a key wedding anniversary.
Source: US Census Bureau |
Implications for Jewelers – The key wedding anniversaries are typically celebrated with a gift of jewelry. If a jeweler maintains wedding data on a couple, the merchant can contact the man (or woman) and suggest that they come into the jeweler’s store to select an appropriate gift for the particular anniversary.
Jewelers who need a reference for the appropriate jewelry gift to give for each of the key five-year wedding anniversaries should consult the following table:
Anniversary | Jewelry Gift |
5th | Silverware |
10th | Diamond Jewelry |
15th | Watches |
20th | Platinum |
25th | Silver |
30th | Diamonds |
35th | Jade |
40th | Rubies |
45th | Sapphires |
50th | Gold |
Divorces Level, But Trend Appears to Show a Decline
Measuring divorce rates has always been tricky. If pollsters make only a subtle change in the way the questions about divorce are asked, the answers will yield different data.
The Census Bureau asks questions about divorce as simply as possible: “Have you ever been divorced?” In 2009, 20.5% of all ever-married men answered “Yes,” while 22.4% of all ever-married women answered “Yes.” That’s very different from the oft-reported “half of all marriages end in divorce” that is bantered around. However, even that statistic is fraught with error, since it includes “never-married” people. If you’ve never been married, you can’t be divorced.
We prefer to use a measure called “cumulative divorce” which measures the divorce rate of “ever-married people.” This measure suggests that roughly 40% of all marriages eventually end in divorce. That’s still below the oft-quoted “50% of all marriages end in divorce.”
The table below summarizes marriage and divorce statistics for the 239 million Americans in 2009 who were 15 years or older.
Marriage / Divorce Status | Men | Women |
Total | 115.8 million | 123.3 million |
Never Married | 33.0% | 27.2% |
Ever Married | 67.0% | 72.8% |
Married Once | 52.3% | 57.5% |
Still Married | 42.5% | 40.6% |
Married Twice | 11.6% | 12.1% |
Still Married | 9.0% | 7.9% |
Married 3 or More Times | 3.1% | 3.2% |
Still Married | 2.3% | 1.9% |
Ever Divorced | 20.5% | 22.4% |
The following two graphs represent the percentage of ever-married men who have ever been divorced by selected ages and birth cohorts (range of year of births).
For younger men, the rate of divorce is clearly declining, though one can argue that they haven’t finished divorcing yet, since they can divorce at any age. However, other studies suggest that younger consumers take marriage more seriously than their Boomer parents.
Source: US Census Bureau |
All key groups of females are showing a moderate decline in the rate of divorce, as the graph below illustrates.
Source: US Census Bureau |
Implications for Jewelers – Men who purchased a diamond engagement ring for their second and subsequent marriages almost invariably purchase a larger, more expensive ring than they did for their first marriage. With the possibility of fewer divorces, the prospects for selling larger diamond engagement rings may be diminished slightly.
The Seven-Year Itch: It’s Really an “Eight-Year Itch,” But It Is Very Real
There’s an old adage about men, in particular, getting the “seven-year itch.” This refers to how long they stay in a marriage with their wife, before they decide they might want to be with another woman.
It appears that the “seven-year” itch is really about eight years, but that the cracks in the marriage begin just before the seventh year.
The duration of the first marriage until the divorce is final – for both men and women – is exactly 8.0 years. However, the duration until the first separation (before divorce proceedings have been initiated) is 6.7 years for men and 6.6 years for women.
Interestingly, the duration of the second marriage is 8.5 years for men and 8.0 years for women.
So the “seven-year itch” is really an “eight-year itch.” Typically, men and women wait just under four years before remarrying.
The table below summarizes statistics related to the “seven-year itch” for marriages.
Duration | Men | Women |
Duration of the first marriage for those whose first marriage ended in divorce | 8.0 years | 8.0 years |
Duration between first divorce and remarriage for those whose first marriages ended in divorce and who had remarried | 3.8 years | 3.7 years |
Duration of second marriage for those whose second marriage ended in divorce | 8.5 years | 8.0 years |
Only about three percent of the ever-married couples have been married three or more times. Only about two-thirds of those couples are still married. In other words, those couples who divorce more than twice are unlikely to be able to create a long-term stable marriage.
Implications for Jewelers – The good news for jewelers is this: there is a market for wedding jewelry associated with second and subsequent marriages.